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HISTORY AS A SCIENCE 



Annual Address of the President 

OF THE 

American Catholic Historical Association 



GIVEN AT THE FINAL SESSION OF THE ASSOCIATION AT 

THE NEW WILLARD HOTEL, WASHINGTON, D. C. 

ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 30TH, I920 



BY J-' 

LAWRENCE F: FLICK. M. D. 



\ 

\ 



NOV 25 1921 



HISTORY AS A SCIENCE 



HISTORY in the abstract has been defined as " the re- 
corded events of the past"; and in the concrete as 
" a narrative, oral or written, of past events ". History 
in action, so to speak, has been defined as " that branch of 
science which is occupied with ascertaining and recording; 
the facts of the past ". These definitions are mere skeletons- 
and do not convey an idea of the subject in its fullness as. 
an ethical and civilizing force. Indeed it would be difficult 
to do this within the limitation of definitions. Figure of 
speech does better, but even figure of speech is lame at it. 
History is the clearing-house of reputations of men and 
nations, in which time adjusts matters, cutting down what 
some have received too much and building up what others 
have received too little. It is the mirror in which man can 
see the solution of the problems of his day if he will look 
into it through the plane of truth and not through the con- 
cavity of his prejudices or the convexity of his predilections. 
It is the Alma Mater of civilization in which each gener- 
ation has been a pupil and could obtain an assay of the value 
of human endeavor for human happiness. It is the dooms- 
day book of man's use and abuse of God's revelations. It is. 
a panorama of the emancipation of man from the thraldom 
of man's lust and greed through the merciful teachings of 
Christ and the taming influence of His sweet yoke. It is 
the wise counsellor of the statesman and the kind mentor of 
the churchman. It is the star-lit heavens of the past from 
which the luminaries of each age reflect back to us the light 
of their noble deeds for our guidance and encouragement. 
Even in the abstract, history as the " recorded events of 



the past " gives but a dim outline of history as a science. 
The events of the past have little meaning when they stand 
■each alone, when they stand in disorder, or when they stand 
M'ith lacunae of missing events in between. To tell their 
story thev must stand together in logical order and com- 
pleteness. Above all, spurious events must be kept out of 
the mosaic. The picture of each age must hang in the light 
of its own age. When thus put together and hung, the 
events of each age haxe a message for the living age which, 
correctly interpreted and properly received, is helpful and 
consoling. Events thcmseh-es are cold things when stand- 
ing apart fi'om the aspirations, hopes, fears, desires, and 
passions which have produced them. History as a science 
must show the events in their human coloring. Man in- 
natel\- is a religious being and is influenced in his conduct 
by his knowledge of and acceptance or rejection of divine 
revelation. Every event must show its coefficient of religion 
for historical value. Man individually and collectively has 
a destiny presided over by an all-seeing Pro\'idence. Events, 
the products of man's activities, only tell their full story 
when seen in the light of that Providential supervision. His- 
tory as a science then must be a complete stor\' of man in 
preceding ages as he stood and acted in the drama of God's 
creation for the benefit of those who are now on the stage 
•of life. This is histtuy in the abstract. 

History in the concrete, to be scientific, too must be more 
than a mere narrative of events. It must be an analysis, an 
understanding and an api)reciation of them, with human 
interest, for the ethical benefit of the living age. There 
must be a motive for ever}^ rational act, and no motive- is 
worthy of man which is not for the good of humanity. His- 
tory therefore must be truthful, ethical, and useful. With- 
out these qualities, to say the least, it is not worth while. It 
may serve the sordid purpose of the individual ; it may 
gratify the vanity of partisans, and for the moment it may 
jnislead the living age, but ultimately it will be \-alued at 



its worth. Cardinal Newman has well said: " Histoiy is a 
record of facts; and facts according to the proverb are stub- 
born things. Ingenious men may misrepresent them for 
awhile, but in the end they will be duly ascertained and ap- 
preciated." The Bible is our best model of what history 
should be. It tells the good deeds and the evil deeds of 
men for the good of the one who reads the story. It does 
not respect persons, but neither does it vilify any one. It 
recognizes the relationship between God and man, and the 
relationship between man and man, and it measures every 
event by the standard of that relationship. It values human 
agencies in the designs of Providence without regard to 
knowledge, intention and responsibilities of the agents. A 
good intention cannot neutralize the evil of ignorance, nor 
can knowledge justify an evil purpose. Action in duress 
may work evil without culpability of the agent. The de- 
sires of a man's heart shine through his most cunning deed. 
In no other place than the Bible do we find the value of 
human events for human happiness in the designs of Pro- 
vidence so accurately measured and so clearly depicted. In 
analysis, in understanding and in appreciation of events, the 
Bible in those parts in which it is historical shows us what 
concrete history, as a finished scientific product, should be. 
True, it is the inspired word alongside of which the work 
of the most capable man will be defective; but it may well be 
taken as the model for man's endeavor. 

History in the concrete as the world now has it for the 
most part is defective. Some of it has been born of bias and 
prejudice ; some of it is the product of unequipped men ; and 
most of it is based on insufficient and incomplete data. 
Commerce, politics, and religion are the three potent factors 
which have distorted and corrupted history. Commerce al- 
ways has and now is playing its part in the prostitution of 
history in a cold unsentimental way. Greed and lust are 
the underlying incentives. Men entrenched behind ill- 
gotten, established privileges, or engaged in intrigue for 



them, do not permit truth to stand in the way of holding or 
attaining them. They live in the present and carefully cover 
their tracks of wrongdoing. Publicly they often parade in 
the disguise of philanthropists. Sometimes they use good 
self-sacrificing men, and grand beneficent projects as stalk- 
ing-horses to cover up their designs. When historical data 
are mixed with commercial data one must scrutinize them 
closely and analyze them carefully to get their true histori- 
cal value. Politics is very much like commerce in its manner 
of polluting history, but is governed more by lust of power 
than by lust of possession. It too is secretive and double- 
dealing in its methods and will sacrifice truth to success. 
Wherever it touches elbows with history one needs to be on 
his guard. Religion is the most honest but also the most 
illusive, misleading factor in history. It befogs the minds 
of men through its effect upon the heart. Since religion is 
the most sacred thing in men's lives, it is not to be won- 
dered at that it subconsciously biases their minds in favor of 
the doctrines and principles which each one individually 
professes. Suppression and misinterpretation are the cJiief 
factors in falsification. Neither is necessarily inspired by 
bad motives ; in a matter of fact both most frequently are be- 
gotten of good motives. But whilst they may perhaps be 
defended ethically, they cannot be defended historically. In 
the words quoted by Pope Leo XIII in his famous Encyclical 
Letter of 1883, " The first law of history is to dread uttering 
falsehood; the next not to fear stating the truth; lastly, that 
the historian's writings should be open to no suspicion of 
partiality or of animosity ". 

More vitiating still is the partisan spirit, the intolerance 
and the persecution engendered by commerce, politics, and 
religion. As they have their seat and action in large bodies 
of people, it is extremely difficult to detect, analyze and 
estimate their influence upon events. Where they exist 
there is action and reaction and the mind easily becomes 
confused in the jungle of events which have grown out of 



them. Good motives and bad acts, bad motives and good 
acts, the deeds of the innocent and the deeds of the guilty, 
acts of necessity and acts of design, what the leader has 
done and what the follower has done, what one has inspired 
and what another has executed, stand so close together and 
are so intertwined that it is difficult to pick out the material 
for the house of history which is sound and true in all its 
parts. Besides, such influences extend over so long a period 
of time that only after centuries is one far enough removed 
from them to be untouched by them, and even then one may 
not altogether escape the waves of secondary influences 
which they may have begotten. It is only by stages through 
the labors of many that the truth is finally sifted out and 
put together. 

Out of the misdeeds of men done in the name of com- 
merce, politics, and religion have arisen widespread, far- 
reaching forces, long inchoant, only relatively recently full 
grown, which like a biting acid blur the truth in events 
beyond recognition. These are Socialism, Sovietism, and 
irreligion. For the most part they are negations, and as 
such are destructive of Christian civilization, elusive of de- 
tection. Fetishes, they inspire radical action by under- 
ground methods and insidious propagandism which reach 
«ven those who try to resist them. They are the poison in 
literature which has made the world sick. They have crept 
into concrete history of more recent making, and will not 
easily be kept out of what is yet to come. What they al- 
ready have done to the minds of the people is responsible 
for the social upheavals through which the world has 
recently gone and is still going. 

Perhaps no one in the last century so clearly foresaw the 
destructive influences of these forces as the venerable Pope 
Leo XIII, who was led by his prevision to write his 
Encyclical Letter on History to Cardinals Antoine de Luca, 
Vice-chancellor of the Holy Roman Church, John Baptist 
Pitra, Librarian of the Holy Roman Church, and Joseph 



8 

Hergenroether, Prefect of the Vatican Archives, in 1883. 
What the Holy Father said in this letter was mostly for 
Italians, but much of it was applicable to the people of the 
entire world. " Often indeed," were some of his words, 
" children have manuals put into their hands for instruction 
thickly sown with falsehood, and when they become accus- 
tomed to these, especially if the perversity and heedlessness 
of the teacher countenance it, the young students are easily 
turned against \'enerable antiquity, and imbued with an 
irreverent scorn of things and men most holy. On leaving 
the elementary classes, they are frequently exposed to a 
danger even greater; for in the higher studies, from the 
narrative of facts they rise to the examination of causes; 
and from these causes they endeavor to deduce laws 
issuing in rash theories, often in flat contradiction to divine 
revelation, and with no other motive than that of glossing 
over or concealing the salutary influence which Christian 
institutions have had on the course of human destinies and 
the progress of events. ... It is indeed hard to conceive 
how much harm may be done by the subservience of history 
to party ends and to the ambition of individuals. For it 
becomes, not the guide of life, nor the light of truth, as 
the ancients have rightly declared it ought to be, but the 
accomplice of vice, and the agent of corruption, especially 
for the young, whose minds it will fill with unsound opin- 
ions, and whose hearts it will turn away from virtue and 
nKxlesty. . . . Let bare assertions be replaced by the fruits of 
painful and patient research, judgments rashly made by the 
outcome of serious study, and fri\-olous opinions by the 
criticism of wisdom. Strenuous efforts should be made to 
refute all falsehoods and untrue statements by ascending 
to the fountain-heads of information. . . . Arbitrary opin- 
ion must necessarily give way before solid arguments; 
truth in spite of persevering opposition must triumph in the 
end; it may be darkened for the moment; never can it be 
extingfuished." What he wanted Catholics to do in the 



matter is well set forth in these words : " If the Church then 
has always deserved well of history, let her again do so 
to-day, when the very state of the times in which we live 
constrains to that duty." 

But it is history as a science in action which most con- 
cerns the members of the organization which I have the 
honor to address. Indeed it was this which constituted the 
purpose of the Holy Father's Encyclical Letter. It was 
this which made the Holy Father's words stimulate the or- 
ganization of Catholic Historical Societies in many parts of 
the world ; and it was this which brought into existence the 
American Catholic Historical Association. Probably too 
history as a science in action means more to Catholics than 
to others, because for four hundred years Catholics have 
been misrepresented by false methods of writing history 
and thus have been made the victims of burdensome op- 
pression and humiliating caricature. 

Intrinsically, history ranks with mathematics, medicine, 
and law in the fellowship of the sciences; but in develop- 
ment as a servant of mankind it has not kept pace with them. 
An explanation of this may be found in man's selfish nature 
and intellectual limitations. The value of history in the 
pursuit of happiness is equal to that of any of the other 
three, but the manner in which one can get that value is 
different. It comes to one as part of the whole mass of 
people in better government, better churchmanship, better 
society, and not as an individual, in more comfort, more 
pleasure, and more opportunity for self-advancement. 
Moreover the science of history does not lead to individ- 
ual emolument, nor does its pursuit give a profitable avoca- 
tion. It cannot even be followed successfully by an individ- 
ual without the help of others. In its nature it is the work 
of many. One man may put the grain in the bin, but many 
must garner the sheaves, thresh it from the straw and winnow 
out the chaflf. It requires talent, patience, devotion, and 
a spirit of self-sacrifice, in the one who pursues it; enlighten- 



lO 

ment and understanding in those who encourage him. Its 
development in an age and in a people really is a fair 
criterion of the civilization of that age and people. 

Since the masses are the beneficiaries of histor}% the 
masses should carry the burdens of its making. There are 
few who can be historians ; there are not many who even 
can be assistant historians ; but every educated intelligent 
man and woman can be a helper; and even the humblest 
person can contribute his mite. For history in action or- 
ganization is essential. Its field is in societies, colleges, and 
universities. In societies congenial spirits meet, create an 
historical atmosphere, and help each other. Societies also 
attract those who cannot themselves produce history, nor 
even assist those who can produce it, but are interested and 
willing to hold up the hands of those who can. Colleges 
and universities have an intellectual atmosphere in which 
historians can live and prosper. They should maintain and 
develop at least one such person and attach him by mem- 
bership to at least one historical society. The rank and 
file of the people can contribute their mites by helping to 
maintain chairs of histon,' in colleges and universities. 
History can never become a lucrative pursuit, but it may be 
made attractive by the universal esteem and respect in which 
it may come to be held. 

Since 1883 there has been an awakening of the American 
people to the importance of history as an asset in our civili- 
zation. In part this has been due to the Encyclical Letter 
of Pope Leo XIII, and in part to progress in education and 
public enlightenment. Catholics perhaps have not responded 
to the Holy Father's appealing letter as well as they should, 
but they have done much. Ten Catholic Historical Socie- 
ties have been organized, eight Catholic Historical Publica- 
tions have been established, and two Catholic Historical 
Libraries have been founded in the United States. Besides 
this, a chair of history has been founded in the Catholic 
University of America and professorships of history either 



II 

have been added to the curriculum or have been made more 
important in many of our Catholic educational institutions. 
There is reason to hope that ere long every large centre of 
population in the United States will have a well organized 
Catholic Historical Society; every Catholic University will 
have its endowed chair of history ; and every Catholic edu- 
cational institution its professorship of history. To bring 
about these things is part of the duty, as I view it, of the 
American Catholic Historical Association. 

For history as a science in action the Rt. Rev. Cuthbert 
Butler, O.S.B., of Downside Abbey, England, has thrown 
out a good idea in his recent book. He recommends that 
scientific study and scientific production of history be made 
one of the " works " laid down in the rule of Benedictine 
monasteries of our day. He advocates setting aside mem- 
bers of the communit}^ who have the " aptitude for it ", who 
can do " laborious study and comparison of original sources, 
the Fathers, the early authorities — working among archives 
and records, transcribing documents, collating manuscripts, 
all of it painful, exacting, unexciting work," for this pur- 
pose and counting it the " work " of the rule for them, 
keeping them at it for life. He speaks of Cardinal Ram- 
polla, than whom " probably no one in our day has had a 
wider outlook on the needs of religion and the Church," as 
in favor of this. " His parting words to me in 191 3," says 
Abbot Butler, " were an exhortation to use all my influence 
for the promotion of good historical studies among my 
monks ". This idea might well he extended to all Catholic 
monasteries and religious houses and modified to suit their 
rule and mode of life. There is no field in which men who 
wish to retire from the world can do more for the Church 
and for humanity than in the field of history, for it is in this 
field civilization will have to seek the balm of Gilead for 
the sores with which it now is afflicted. 

The American Catholic Historical Association has come 
into existence at a time when the world is ripe for it and 



12 

merely needs to do each task which falls within its easily dis- 
cernible, well defined field of labor, promptly as it comes 
along, to accomplish all that its most ardent friends can 
expect of it. Under the friendly patronage of the Catholic 
University of America, which it has without stint, it can get 
the hearty support of Catholic men and women and of 
Catholic educational institutions from all parts of the United 
States, for the asking, if it will but place a well constructed 
scientific programme before them. The programme must be 
worthy of the cause, however, and of the people before whom 
it is placed. It must take in, not only history in the making 
for America, but history in the remaking for the world, 
for all that time in which history has been a conspiracy 
against the truth. For four hundred years history has been 
built upon bias, prejudice, greed, and false philosophy. To 
show up falsehood in what has been written, and give the 
world the truth in its place, ought to be, and surely would 
be an appealing task for our Catholic American people. To 
lead in this work and find the w'ays and means of doing it 
clearly is one of the functions of this organization. What 
the Catholic Church has done for our country and what 
Catholics as individuals and as a body have contributed to 
the development of our free institutions and the formation 
of the character of our people has never been woven into 
our history or our literature. To have this done likewise is 
one of the functions of this organization. Historic truth 
should be written into our school books, not only the school 
books of Catholic children but the school books of all 
children. Falsehood here is a deadly poison to our free in- 
stitutions. Surely it is the function of this Society to pre- 
vent insidious implantation of error in the minds of the 
young and to supply historic truth for their intellectual food. 
How shall the functions of our organization be per- 
formed? It takes money and men, women too, for such a 
programme. All of these are available, but they must be 
sought for in our large prosperous Catholic population. 



The first step is to get up a membership large and strong 
enough to give an adequate income for the work. Ever}^ 
Catholic educational institution of our country ought to be, 
can be and will be a member of our society when the reasons 
for it are presented. Many members of the Catholic Hier- 
archy already are members and probably all will be when the 
facts have been laid before them. Many clergymen and 
many laymen have joined our ranks, and many thousands 
of them would join if they understood the objects of the 
association and were confronted with a programme which 
would appeal to them as worthy of their cooperation. The 
next step, when an income which would warrant it has been 
attained, is to place archivists in the libraries of Europe and 
America in which there are documents that have a bearing 
upon the work to be done. This preliminary work is neces- 
sary' to get at the facts, not only for rewriting general his- 
tory, but for writing the history of our own country. What 
Catholics ha\-e done in the develo|)ment of America has not 
got into our histories for the most part because the docu- 
ments which set forth much of it that is. worth while, lie 
hidden in the archi\'es of Europe. The work of the Catholic 
missionaries who undoubtedly did much to shape the moral 
destiny of our country and to form the character of our 
people, still lies hidden from the world in the archives of 
Europe. The Catholic immigrant brought with him Cath- 
olic principles which he poured into the melting-pot of cus- 
toms and habits of the people with whom he associated in his 
new home even when he lost his Faith for lack of opportunity 
to practise his religion The data upon which this could be 
essayed are not now available but could be got with pains- 
taking effort. What Catholics did who kept their Faith and 
what Catholics did who lost it — these are unknown quan- 
tities still in the development of our country, because no one 
has taken the trouble to work them out. Both of these 
questions are of interest in the study of the character and 
habits of our people. The influence of such men as Arch- 



14 

bishop Carroll, John Carroll of Carrolton, Fitzimons. Gal- 
litzin, Cheverus, Farmer, Barry-, Meade, Helbron, Wimmer, 
O'Conway, and thousands of others, prelates, clerg\' and 
laymen, upon the development of American character and 
the formation of American customs and habits, even through 
non-Catholics, in the very nature of things, must have been 
an important factor. All of this should be woven into our 
histor)'. 

In conclusion I wish to express my appreciation of the 
honor which has been conferred upon me in making me the 
first President of this organization. J will try to make my- 
self worthy by devoting some of the energy of my declining 
years to help carry out the programme which I have outlined, 

Lawrence F. Flick. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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